Spring Airlines Chairman Wang Yu: Solving the "equation" of civil aviation safety, efficiency, and inclusiveness

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(Source: Securities Daily Voice)

Figure ① A Spring Airlines aircraft

Figure ② Spring Airlines Chairman Yu Wang (right) provided by the company

Figure ③ A corner of Spring Airlines’ corporate exhibition hall

Figure ④ Illustration of a “studio” model for Spring Airlines International Travel Service in Shanghai

Figure ⑤ A development timeline wall display exhibited in the corporate exhibition hall, shot by Wanxia Jin

All A320 aircraft models in one color, a high-density cabin layout with 186 seats, only economy class with no meals, and ticket prices that are typically 30% to 40% lower than those of competitors… When people talk about Spring Airlines, many travelers are familiar with it—some affectionately call it the “green train in the sky.”

However, for Spring Airlines Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Spring Airlines”), a listed company, not many people know much about it. In fact, it is one of China’s civil aviation (hereinafter “civil aviation”) companies with the highest profitability and the most efficient operations. According to Spring Airlines’ disclosed 2025 third-quarter report, its gross margin and net margin reached 17.7% and 13.92%, respectively, remaining among the leading domestic civil aviation companies; in addition, its 2025 semiannual report shows that in the first half of 2025, Spring Airlines’ aircraft utilization rate reached 9.7 hours per day, exceeding the industry average.

“The biggest dividend in civil aviation is the country’s development, and the biggest room comes from the continuously expanding demand for mass travel.” In early 2026, during an interview with a reporter from Securities Daily, Spring Airlines Chairman Yu Wang shared the company’s development “secret,” saying, “Spring Airlines uses market-based means and methods to solve China’s civil aviation ‘inclusiveness/affordability’ puzzle.”

The set of data Yu Wang provided is highly convincing: as of the end of 2024, Spring Airlines had cumulatively transported 240 million passenger trips, of which the share of passengers flying for the first time reached 37.7%. “That is to say, for every three passengers, one is someone who makes their ‘dream of flying’ come true through us.” As he said this, there was a hint of pride in Yu Wang’s tone. Today, he also has an even more urgent wish: to further tilt Spring Airlines’ routes toward the “old, young, border, and revolutionary” areas (i.e., old industrial bases, ethnic minority regions, border regions, and revolutionary old base areas), and toward third- and fourth-tier cities—“so that more passengers can keep pace with the steps of development in the times.”

Unlocking benefits through refined management

Back to 2005: the first A320 aircraft sprayed with Spring Airlines’ branding flew from Shanghai to Yantai, and the 199-yuan ticket price quickly became a widely discussed topic in the streets and alleys. From then on, the concept of “low-cost carriers” entered the Chinese market.

“Spring Airlines started as a tourism business.” Yu Wang recalled that in 1981, in a two-square-meter tin shack next to Zhongshan Park in Shanghai, Yu Wang’s father, Wang Zhenghua (then a street-office official), founded Shanghai Spring Airlines International Travel Service (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Spring International Travel”). Unexpectedly, Spring International Travel took off immediately, and by the 1990s it had firmly secured the top spot in China’s domestic tourism industry. During its tourism business operations, Wang Zhenghua found that the high air ticket prices became the biggest obstacle preventing ordinary people from traveling.

“At the time, taking a flight often cost over a thousand yuan; for ordinary people, that was equivalent to several months’ wages—an example of luxury consumption.” Yu Wang said. Could more people afford to fly? That became the original intention behind Spring Airlines’ founding, as well as the shared pursuit of two generations of father and son.

The civil aviation industry is highly complex, and safety, on-time performance, service quality, and cost control are widely recognized in the industry as elements that are difficult to balance. As an “outsider” who came from the tourism sector, how would Spring Airlines solve the problem?

“There’s nothing else—when you encounter problems, solve problems, and rely on refined management to unlock every bit of efficiency.” Yu Wang admitted. For example, to save one or two minutes of taxiing time, Spring Airlines rolled out the “east in, east out; west in, west out” operating procedure at Pudong Airport; to save fuel, Spring Airlines used big-data modeling and managed to bring unit fuel consumption down to 28% lower than the industry average.

With this lean-and-precise approach, Spring Airlines not only “entered the industry,” but also became a “catfish” that activated the civil aviation market. As early as 2018, Spring Airlines was the first to realize touchless services at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport—from check-in, baggage drop-off, to security checks—so passengers do not need paper vouchers throughout the entire process and can complete everything just by facial recognition.

Nowadays, more and more airlines are trying low-price strategies. “Spring Airlines’ ability to innovate and break through in this area is largely due to how we concentrate and make use of our own resources,” Yu Wang said. Spring Airlines adheres to the mission of “making it possible for the public to afford flights.” The whole system—route setting, product positioning, organizational structure, and more—is tightly built around this goal. In factors that appear difficult to balance, it finds solutions through the precise coordination of the entire system.

Advancing reforms of the management model

“It’s said that automobiles have thousands of parts and the supply chain is complex, but the civil aviation industry is even more complex than the automobile industry.” Yu Wang further explained. The civil aviation industry is more like a precision mechanical wristwatch: all functional departments are like gears running at the same time, affecting one another and creating cause and effect—“if any link jams, it will affect the efficiency and safety of the entire system.”

Yu Wang said that he officially joined Spring Airlines in 2008, and since then, how to safely and efficiently command the operation of all the company’s “gears” has been circling in his mind. As the company’s size and scale have grown, the need to “solve the problem” has become even more urgent. “When I first joined the company, Spring Airlines only had a few aircraft and limited employees; when something happened, everyone held a meeting and resolved it.” Yu Wang recalled. However, with the rapid expansion of the fleet size, the previous simple path of “saving money” hit a bottleneck, making reforms to the management model imperative.

The first thing he did was reform the management approach. “Corporate reform cannot have ‘box thinking.’” Yu Wang said. Within Spring Airlines, he promoted breaking down sectional barriers, pushing responsibility downward, taking a problem-oriented approach, and “connecting” everyone through grid-based management.

Challenges followed as well. Given the complexity of the civil aviation industry, Yu Wang emphasized that reforms must not constantly “go for broke”; they must be optimized step by step, like peeling an onion. He started with the finance function, gradually shifting the company from the “profit center system” of the start-up period to “matrix-based management.” The breakthrough point for breaking down departmental barriers lies in the information system.

Inside Spring Airlines’ operations control center, massive display screens show dynamic data on more than 600 flights’ operations for the day. Xing Quan, deputy director of the Emergency Management Office of Spring Airlines’ operations command headquarters, said that Spring Airlines has achieved intelligent release assessment for nearly half of its flights; by the end of 2026, this capability will be extended to cover 100% of flights. “The yellow icons represent the aircraft currently in flight, and the green area shows the snowfall weather that will soon affect the Shanghai region. Our system can monitor the end-to-end data associated with a flight—from planning, support/guarantees, and flight through to completion. Weather experts, flight experts, maintenance engineers, and dispatch experts work together here to handle various kinds of unexpected situations in the first instance.” Xing Quan said.

At Spring Airlines, there are 22 such information systems in total, all of which are developed independently. According to the introduction, Spring Airlines previously also had an IT department, but there was a situation of “business belonging to business and IT belonging to IT.” Yu Wang, however, adhered to the philosophy of “business-driven IT.” In his view, if each system runs independently and the interfaces do not connect, then the data becomes an isolated island, and collaborative management turns into empty talk.

“Spring Airlines is an airline that values technology.” Yu Wang repeatedly emphasized that Spring Airlines’ information systems must achieve full end-to-end data connectivity, becoming the company’s nerve center for efficient and coordinated operations.

According to the materials, up to now Spring Airlines has obtained 127 software copyrights and has 34 software products with domestically originated, independently owned intellectual property rights. The push toward informatization, intelligence, and data-driven operations has also helped Spring Airlines carry out more refined business and management. From 2023 to 2025, Spring Airlines ranked first for on-time arrival rate among major domestic airlines for three consecutive years, and it was the only carrier to receive full A-grade in the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s “four rates” (safety, on-time performance, service, and execution) evaluation for civil aviation. It also received the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s four-star award for flight safety for private airlines.

Actively exploring new growth drivers

In early 2026, at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, engines roar and takeoffs and landings are busy. The Spring Airlines headquarters building right next to the airport’s T1 terminal area is simply decorated, with no luxurious displays; even in the corporate exhibition hall, there are only a few wall poster boards. It is hard to imagine that this is the headquarters of a listed company with a market value exceeding 40 billion yuan. Inside the exhibition hall, a route map caught the reporter’s attention: unlike most airlines that mainly concentrate along the southeast coast, cities in the central and western regions such as Hunan Hengyang, Guizhou Zunyi, and Sichuan Guangyuan are equally prominent on the map.

Where is Spring Airlines’ new growth point amid fierce market competition? Yu Wang said, “Spring Airlines’ routes need to further tilt toward the ‘old, young, border, and revolutionary’ regions, and toward third- and fourth-tier cities.”

“My country has a super-large market formed by more than 1.4 billion people, including more than 400 million middle-income groups—an advantage that no other country can match.” He said. Although China has become the world’s second-largest air transport market, there are still about 1 billion people who have not taken a plane; this field is a huge blue ocean for future growth.

Spring Airlines moved quickly. Currently, the proportion of “old, young, border, and revolutionary” routes in Spring Airlines has exceeded 20%. In 2024, the company transported 3.8 million passengers in ethnic minority regions including Xinjiang, Yunnan, Qinghai, and Guangxi.

Spring Airlines innovatively integrated its route network with rural revitalization. Wherever the routes go, it delivers tourists there. To date, the company has opened 50 “old, young, border, and revolutionary” routes, building “air corridors” to help revitalize the central and western regions. Since 2020, it has opened 5 routes for Shanghai’s counterpart support in Yunnan, including to Mangshi, Wenshan, and Xishuangbanna, with a cumulative total of 405,000 tourist trips. In 2023, Spring Airlines also signed strategic cooperation agreements for tourism charter flights with four places in Xinjiang and Tibet—Kashgar, Karamay, Shigatse, and Guoluo in Qinghai—for 100 aircraft. To further empower local development, Spring Airlines launched the “Blue Sky Building Dreams Program,” creating a precise assistance model that combines “formal education” and “vocational education.” Currently, the company has cumulatively recruited 174 flight attendants from Honghe prefecture and Zunyi in the provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou; this is 9.6% of the total number of flight attendants, and among them, the share of people from ethnic minority regions reaches 92%. Average annual income per person exceeds 100,000 yuan.

Yu Wang found that when the routes expanded to places such as Lanzhou and Shantou, local travel demand was extremely strong. “Many cities have a strong demand for air travel, but in the past, this part of demand was not fully met. Spring Airlines is willing to become a ‘pioneer who opens up new routes.’” He said.

Looking ahead, Yu Wang believes that China’s penetration rate for low-cost aviation is only about 12%, far below the global average of about 37% to 38%, leaving huge room for development. “What we need to do is to continuously solve the ‘equation’ between safety, efficiency, and inclusiveness in civil aviation.”

At the end of the interview, a Spring Airlines aircraft happened to pass across the sky—it is steadily flying toward deeper, farther, and broader ground at the grassroots level.

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